Development of the Space Shuttle

Like the first volume, The Space Shuttle Decision, Heppenheimer delivers on a detailed look into the Space Shuttle, this time focusing on the development process from 1972 to the launch of Columbia in 1981. It is exhaustively detailed, often at the cost of a strong narrative, but that is a matter of expectation management.

The most interesting aspect to comment on is the books’ relation to the Challenger and the Columbia disasters. Challenger is referenced both in relation to the solid rocket boosters and in relation to the operation of the Shuttle. Here the management issues are called out as the primary cause of the disaster.

This book first came out in 2002 and thus before the loss of Columbia. In the chapters discussing thermal protection, the fragility of the thermal tiles are frequently mentioned. Their fragility is mentioned almost every time they are brought up. The damage to Columbia was, not on the tiles, but on the adjacent reinforced carbon-carbon thermal protection. I wonder how these chapters would have been written with the hindsight of the Columbia disaster.